Arrived Aug 24th with QB not feeling perfect; by B’Day quite stomach sick. Crappy B’day for her and Judi who was hit with Ida a couple of days later.

Saturday the 28th took a risk and ate with extended family at a restaurant. QB ate meatballs and spaghetti. In retrospect it was a poor choice. Had to have soup and easy digest stuff almost all week. That and lots of over the counter stuff.

Went to Cranston to get a shelf for the kitchen. QB wanted me to wait until George could help. Either bonding (her words) or doubt you will do it right (her thoughts).

Thursday 1 September Ida rain and winds here. Lost power for a very short while. Route 24 closed in parts. Possibly 7.9 inches in some part of Portsmouth.

Friday: KB booster shot at CVS and then long but fruitful trip, got Morris Chair ordered. 7 month or so delivery. Mint chip ice cream after dinner in Bristol

Friday night to Saturday – booster reaction. Chills, tired.

Dinner party with Justine, Gratian and their family as well as Chanaka’s family, (Chanaka, Nimalka and Stephan), Sri Lankan friends of J&G (visiting from Fresno and Sri Lanka).

An especially gracious hosting (we even left with tea from Sri Lanka given by both families, a fine Beringer wine and a few finger limes) of wine, food, conversation and lots of laughter (much needed in these plague years).

This ranks exceedingly high among our “most memorable” dinners. There were two broths, had stomach capacity for only one. The non-vegetarian broth worked exceedingly well for both meats (lamb highly marbled beef) and seafoods (scallops, abalone, fish paste). Veg and shrooms came after.

As usual, abalone, even in a great broth, and well cooked, was still reminiscent of erasers. However, did not stop me from having seconds. The experimentation continues. Lovely Beringer Merlot and Cab.

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Was too engaged with the conversation to take pics of blueberry panna cotta, fruit and interesting Turkish drip coffee. Need to ask Gratian if that blend was made to be used as drip or only for the traditional type.

The smiling faces attest to the evening and the food. Impossible to capture the pleasure.

A delightful cultural item: More than once WE were thanked for coming! Yes, WE were thanked.

Finally all able to get together and hug a bit. Lots of food and a good time with a bit of drinking.

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The following contributed by Dee

Note the fine food! Moorish meat, cherry pie, cauli salad, corn salad, verggie torte (kuku) tomato tapa sticks, nectarine pound cake, pan con tomate (with added glass 🙂 ) and usual good fixins like olives and spanish almonds.

Got to try Lillet and some good wines as well. Overall a really fine post covid lockdown evening

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Depends from when you count…..All good.

Dinner at our favorite Taiwanese dumpling place, Din Tai Fung

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In honor of Bobby and JD pigging out in Spain we added our own oinks.

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Description of oinks:

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A bit underwhelming and disappointing. overall enjoyed but expected to see much more

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Some shots from the exhibit. There is also a nice explanation in the exhibit document via its QR code

lens.famsf.org

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Freedom and yet

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A few days after our arrival from GZ2.0 Don went into the emergency room and emerged yesterday. He and family flew to Korea for medical and family support

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…and then there were fewer of the former

Sad to report a hot tub free day. Drained for cleaning, will miss the grand reopening tomorrow

and a lot more of these latter ones. Thunderstorms forecasted:

NGRID: We are closely monitoring the weather forecast for potential severe thunderstorms later today. Stay connected and prepared at ngrid.com/outagecentral. Ngrid is the local national grid.

George and Michelle were much less piggy. Then we all had ice cream.